In the second century Hijrah, during
the reign of the celebrated Abbasid Caliph,
Haroon-ur-Rashid, Baghdad reached the heights of its glory.
It became the centre of trade of silks, perfumes, jewels and
much more. It was dubbed "The City of Knowledge" on account
of the teachings of many subjects being carried out over
there, like astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and religion
(Islam).

Amongst the many great scholars and
teachers of the time, Junaid
Baghdadi (Junaid of Baghdad)
happened to be one. He acquired many pupils and won many
disciples owing to his high moral character, piety and
understanding of Islam. He loved them all as much as they
loved him. But most of them felt that he had special liking
for one particular disciple, which made them very jealous.
They often thought of checking his favouritism by
complaining, but each time they stopped out of respect for
their teacher.

Finally, one day one of them gathered
enough courage to represent a team that was supposed to put
forward the complaints in front of Junaid. On being asked
what had brought them there, the representative narrated all
that was in their minds. "Why is it that you prefer him
above all others? He is just another disciple of yours, just
like all the rest of us," he complained.

In return, Junaid explained, "Only
Almighty Allah and I have special liking for him, but in due
time you will also start developing such liking for him,
when you will realise that his wisdom, understanding of
Islam and devotion to Allah is much superior to yours." The
look of doubt on their faces made him realise that they had
not understood the depth of his explanation.

So the next morning he called all of
his students and disciples over and asked them to come back
to him after each one of them had bought a hen from the
market. On their return, he instructed them, "I want each
one of you to go and slaughter your hen, making sure
nobody sees you do it."

In the afternoon, all of them returned
proudly, each with a different story of how they found a
place to slaughter their hens, where nobody was seeing them.
But Junaids favourite disciple had not returned till
late evening.

When he finally came back, he found
out that everybody had been waiting for him. On top of it,
he had come back without slaughtering his hen. He became the
laughing-stock for most of the people present. "The wisest
disciple indeed!" they chided. On being asked why he had not
followed the instructions, he replied, "I failed to find a
place where nobody was seeing; wherever I took my hen, Allah
Almighty was there, so I had no choice but to bring the hen
back, unslaughtered."

Junaid accepted the reasoning with a
smile, and was happy that his favourite disciple was bound
to win respect amongst the others this time, as he had once
again proved his superiority in wisdom, understanding of
Islam and devotion to Almighty Allah.